(no subject)

*deep breaths*

In three hours, we will know a lot more than we know now. I'll make an update post as soon as I am able, though that may not be right away whatever the news is.

I slapped on a nicotine patch first thing this morning, so at least the quitting smoking is on track.

Good thoughts, wishes, prayers, goat sacrifices all welcome.

(no subject)

PET SCAN CLEAR, BABY!!!! Yours truly does not have metastatic disease beyond the lymph nodes. I am, however, still a special fucking snowflake because the testing also still didn't find the primary tumor. Meaning I am of the less than one percent of all breast cancer patients who present with an occult tumor. My exact staging will have to wait until they can get the cancer out, find out how many lymph nodes are involved, and test it for grading and hormone sensitivity and all that blather. I will probably be staged at IIa or IIb. Next step is to meet with the surgeon on Wednesday. ETA: because I'm a moron I forgot..also have to have an ultrasound pelvic and a bone scan later this week. Both are expected to come back clear with a high degree of certainty, so I am not hardly stressing them.

The lymph nodes are getting hacked out for absolute certain, the question of whether or not one or both of my boobs is getting fired will be discussed further with him, but frankly I'm not letting them leave the left one on regardless. The fact that the primary cancer evaded all normal method of detection means it may actually still be there somewhere, and they don't know where, and if it simply ate itself up it could come back and evade detection again. No way in hell am I living with that time bomb. As for the right one? The oncologist wants me to do genetic testing before deciding. I'm sort of thinking, fuck that. Anything, anything I can do to avoid going through this again, I will do, and I'm not particularly attached to my breasts to begin with. And again, I have no way of knowing if there is a hidey motherfucker in that one as well that just hasn't reached the lymph nodes yet. Better flat than sorry is currently my motto. I will, however, wait for the results of the genetic testing before deciding on a prophylactic removal of the ovaries.

After the removal of body parts it will be on to chemo and then radiation. Again, exact course and drugs dependent on testing following surgery, but I will definitely be given both. This is still going to suck HARD, and I've got a lot of shit left to go through. But today? I AM NOT DYING. I can fight this motherfucker, and you better believe I'm gonna. Bitch is going down.

(no subject)

Now that I'm able to ease back a bit on the 'omg I'm going to die' panic, I'm starting to find this whole occult breast cancer thing a bit fascinating, in a sick way. It happens so rarely that the medical opinion on it seems to sum up to 'we dunno', which I suppose is fitting since this whole nightmare started with me presenting with another condition (hives) that also seems to leave the medical profession going 'yeah, we got nothing' And I find myself wondering if the same thing that makes them both so confusing is what caused this in the first place. My entirely layperson, too much googlefying, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, theory is that a teeny tiny tumor had started growing, and at some point sort of..self destructed, scattering the malignant cells about, which ended up regrouping in the lymph nodes, which activated a hyperimmune response (or possibly the hyperimmune response is what caused it to self destruct in the first place). Voila, no primary tumor, breast cancer metastasis to the lymph nodes and a very itchy me, now with added lumps. I honestly wonder if they've done studies to see if there is a higher incidence of prior autoimmune in people this happens to (and though I didn't look too closely at other cancers in my scouring of the internets, it did seem like this is not just something that happens with breast cancer). 'Cause if you want to stump the medical community faster than anything, a sure way to do it is to bring in the immune system.

From a practical standpoint it makes no difference. My official (oh god FINALLY) diagnosis is still breast cancer (dx: breast cancer has now replaced the less specific dx: metastatic cancer to lymph nodes on my test orders). The treatment is the same as if they'd actually found the primary tumor in the first place, since they can still look at what they will have from the lymph nodes and get all the information needed to properly target the chemo drugs, surgery was going to happen either way, and follow up radiation is pretty much automatic the second you get a lymph node involved. From a 'human bodies are weird' perspective though it's...well, weird. I am probably going to turn into the most annoying patient ever interrogating my various doctors about some of this, where they are all 'but...we have a course of treatment' and I continue to badger them like a three year old in the 'why?' phase, not about how they will fix me, but how I got here in the first place.

In other news, you should probably never leave Zen and I alone in a consultation room for over a half hour, terrified about what we might hear, waiting for the doctor. The levels of panic this induces will almost certainly result in us writing rude notes about the oncologist's lack of cleavage (we were hoping for Cuddy. We are also twelve.) in my cancer notebook, making all manner of horribly inappropriate jokes, and laughing hard enough that I'm quite sure we disturbed the other patients. I am so going to be the troublemaker. I think my oncologist is already facepalming.